Experimental philosophy of actual and counterfactual free will intuitions

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2015

Department

Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences

Abstract

Five experiments suggested that everyday free will and moral responsibility judgments about some hypothetical thought examples differed from free will and moral responsibility judgments about the actual world. Experiment 1 (N=106) showed that free will intuitions about the actual world measured by the FAD-Plus poorly predicted free will intuitions about a hypothetical person performing a determined action (r=.13). Experiments 2-5 replicated this result and found the relations between actual free will judgments and free will judgments about hypothetical determined or fated actions (rs=.22-.35) were much smaller than the differences between them (ηp2=.2-.55). These results put some pressure on theoretical accounts of everyday intuitions about freedom and moral responsibility.

Publication Title

Consciousness and Cognition

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